Reflections on blog links

There have been a million and one projects to work on, quotes to submit, clients to liaise with and family matters to keep on top of. And that’s just this afternoon!

All of which has made me reflect on how I spend what little time I choose to make available for social media.

I am by far not the first person to have considered the following, but having reached a point in my business activities where I have to make choices, here’s what I’m thinking. This is not the first time I’ve thought this, either.

There are two types of blogger — those who predominantly create links to other conversations and points of view of interest, and those who express opinions.

Depending on the time I have available, I may or may not be disposed to pay attention to the opinion bloggers. But I am more inclined to give my attention to them and increasingly less inclined to pay attention to a linkage blogger. With linkage bloggers, I find myself relying on a stand-out, knock-me-dead headline to induce me to follow any of the links I find on their posts.

For a long time one of my favourite bloggers has been Trevor Cook. I have read Trevor long enough now (for over a year) that I can tell when he has a full plate and when he has a bit of space. When his plate is full his posts are linkage posts; when he has a bit more time up his sleeve he gives insightful commentary. I love it when he gives insightful commentary. When he does he reminds me of Shel Holtz, who is and probably will always be one of the first two feeds I check. The man doesn’t just link, he’s confident enough about himself to give me a glimpse into his soul.

One of the reasons I spend so much time on my ‘Clippings‘ postings is that even though they are only linkage posts they also have enough commentary around them that someone who scan reads (and isn’t that all of us?) can get the gist of what I am linking to and why in order that they may make an informed decision as to whether to follow the link or not. Along with the commentary they will hopefully also ingest some inkling of my own soul and mind.

So, in light of that, I am reducing my ‘cappuccino’ reads even further. Seth Godin once stated that he only reads about six blogs; Allan Jenkins and I recently agreed that there are about 40 blogs which seem to cover the gamut of our industry — reading those on a semi regular basis brings us rapidly up to speed on what is of importance to our daily bread.

‘Attention’ is a commodity that has both finite properties and massive value to me at the moment. If you want my attention, give me something my brain can chew on, preferably with all the old DM verities of compelling headline, compelling sub-heads, great copy, powerful visuals that directly tie in with the copy, a caption to the image to explain its relationship so that I am in absolutely no doubt what the image is trying to tell me, and so on.

Not sure what I’m on about? Not sure you can deliver? Study Ted Nicholas. He is all you need to read. Trust me, I’m a psychologist…

Hey Kami, you and me both, girl! [smile] Give me longer posts, Kami — I like your mind, and I am hungry for more of what makes Kami tick. Remember, long copy is better than short copy as long as it’s not boring; your copy is good, i just want more of it! Show me your soul, girl!

http://leehopkins.net Lee

Hey Kami, you and me both, girl! [smile] Give me longer posts, Kami — I like your mind, and I am hungry for more of what makes Kami tick. Remember, long copy is better than short copy as long as it’s not boring; your copy is good, i just want more of it! Show me your soul, girl!

http://theengagingbrand.typepad.com/ Anna Farmery

One thing I would add is that I always make sure that I have a group of blogs – i.e. yours! – that is not necessarily in my sphere, but that it stimulates ideas to use in my area…employee engagement and development. This way you don’t get too narrow and can learn from other spheres. So a mix of tech, comms, marketing, HR and corporate etc gives me a more rounded insight….or at least I think it does!

http://theengagingbrand.typepad.com Anna Farmery

One thing I would add is that I always make sure that I have a group of blogs – i.e. yours! – that is not necessarily in my sphere, but that it stimulates ideas to use in my area…employee engagement and development. This way you don’t get too narrow and can learn from other spheres. So a mix of tech, comms, marketing, HR and corporate etc gives me a more rounded insight….or at least I think it does!

http://trevorcook.typepad.com/ Trevor Cook

One of my golden rules is: only blog when it feels right to do so. I don’t feel we should have to blog to any pattern. Sometimes my ‘insightful’ commentary days are also the days when something or someone is annoying me and sometimes my clippings days are also my peaceful reading days when I have time to scan through, and read, much more of my 800+ feeds than is usually the case. Like Anna I value the serendipidity of scanning through stuff that on first glance might be outside my main area of interest. But, yes, links usually means I’m busy with non-blogging stuff.

http://trevorcook.typepad.com Trevor Cook

One of my golden rules is: only blog when it feels right to do so. I don’t feel we should have to blog to any pattern. Sometimes my ‘insightful’ commentary days are also the days when something or someone is annoying me and sometimes my clippings days are also my peaceful reading days when I have time to scan through, and read, much more of my 800+ feeds than is usually the case. Like Anna I value the serendipidity of scanning through stuff that on first glance might be outside my main area of interest. But, yes, links usually means I’m busy with non-blogging stuff.

http://overtonecomm.blogspot.com/ Kami Huyse

Yes, and I thought I was already too long winded. Also, there is that little thing called work. Would you listen to me if I was unemployed?

http://overtonecomm.blogspot.com/ Kami Huyse

Yes, and I thought I was already too long winded. Also, there is that little thing called work. Would you listen to me if I was unemployed?

http://leehopkins.net/ Lee

Kami, of COURSE I would still read you — it is your brain and how you dump that onto the web that stimulates and interests me, not your working status. We both know of someone who is having a hard time at the moment and she may not be picking up much work, but does that mean we stop reading her? Absolutely not!

http://leehopkins.net Lee

Kami, of COURSE I would still read you — it is your brain and how you dump that onto the web that stimulates and interests me, not your working status. We both know of someone who is having a hard time at the moment and she may not be picking up much work, but does that mean we stop reading her? Absolutely not!

http://leehopkins.net/ Lee

…but then again, I’m a wordsmith so maybe that explains why I love longer posts to shorter ones… I love how some writers (Kathy Sierra is a case in point, as is Shel Holtz when he’s ‘on a roll’) create full-colour pictures when they write

http://leehopkins.net Lee

…but then again, I’m a wordsmith so maybe that explains why I love longer posts to shorter ones… I love how some writers (Kathy Sierra is a case in point, as is Shel Holtz when he’s ‘on a roll’) create full-colour pictures when they write

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Recommended reading

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Tactical Transparency by Shel Holtz and John Havens.A belter of a book and a 'must read' addition to any communicator's bedside reading table if they are serious about introducing social media into their communication plans. It includes a fabulous chapter on transparency and business (hint: you want to photocopy it and give it to your CEO!)

Qualitative Communication Research Methods by Thomas Lindlof and Bryan Taylor.Not just a book for academics, it's chock-full of great ideas on how to effectively and efficiently research your employees, customers, the marketplace and other stakeholders

The Twitter Book by Tim O'Reilly and Sarah Milstein.
A fabulous book that gives a clear, clean overview of what Twitter is and WHY you should be engaging with it. THEN it goes into depth with so many tips and ideas that they should have sold the book for twice the price!

Practical SEO Copywriting: a ‘must get’ book. My mate Glenn Murray has written a bottler of a new book on search engines and copywriting.

In a cunning twist of bizarre nomenclature, he’s titled it Practical SEO Copywriting. The cheeky little fox! It’s a DIY guide to writing online copy for both human readers AND for that 400kg gorilla we lovingly call ‘Google’.

The danger, Glenn quite rightly …err …writes is that focusing too much attention on all of the supposed SEO ‘tricks of the trade’ will make your copy all but unreadable by the human brain. You know, all that stuff bandied about by the so-called SEO (search engine optimisation) experts: keyword frequency, exact string versus individual words scattered across the page, page length, alt tags, header tags, and so on.

Not that this stuff isn’t important – it all is, and more besides – but Glenn argues persuasively that by far more important is the ability to write copy that people will actually want to read – and link to!

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